I Escape!

My host family on Pine Ridge has been more than hospitable the past few days. Not only did they spend many hours trying to help me fix my car, but they also let me stay at their home instead of the construction site so I wouldn’t be stranded there. That means I haven’t been able to do any work for them since Thursday. It made me feel like something of a freeloader, so when Shannon went shopping I pitched in for the cost of some groceries.

That being said, I made my grand escape from the res this morning! No, the car hadn’t been fixed yet. It did, however, start and run (albeit without taillights, turn signals, a charging battery or a working speedometer… amongst other things). I charged the battery overnight with Gerald’s wall charger, then loaded up early this morning and took off for the mechanic-laden town of Chadron, Nebraska.

I knew Shannon and her family would have let me stay longer, but I didn’t want to be any more of a burden and I was going stir crazy just sitting around the house for the past four days. I also concluded that it was time to seek some expert help on the car, and Chadron had a foreign car repair shop. I figured my Infiniti wouldn’t look to them like it came from another planet as it did to my mechanic friends on the res. I love and trust my res friends, but their experience was more or less limited to Fords and Chevies. At one point, Gerald spoke to his brother on the phone and told him about my electrical problems. I heard him say “I don’t know what kind of car it is… one of those expensive Japanese models.” Expensive? My ’93 Infiniti? Maybe 17 years and 130,000 miles ago…

Another perk of Chadron was that it was within range at 70 miles away. I estimated I could only drive about 150 miles before running out of gas because—get this—the electric button that opens the gas tank cover also didn’t work.


The drive was tense, to say the least. Fortunately, I only had to make a few turns on the whole trip. The scariest part happened about two minutes after I first started out because it was a cold morning and my whole windshield fogged up from the outside. Wipers were kaput, so I had no way of cleaning it off and I couldn’t see the road in front of me until I rolled down the window—one of the few electrical things that did work—and stuck my head out. That’s when I noticed a car behind me. There was no shoulder, just a steep ditch, so I couldn’t pull over. To make things worse, driving with your head out the window makes it really tough to stay right of the center line. I was swerving like a maniac, so I just stopped on the road and waved the other driver by. No doubt he thought I was completely wasted. At least, that’s what I read from the look he gave me.

I got out and wiped off my windshield from the outside before continuing. Without a speedometer, I decided to play it safe by driving a bit below what I guessed was the limit. Lower speeds are easy for me to gauge by the feel of the road, but faster speeds are much more difficult; I could have been going anywhere from 60-80mph and the last thing I needed then was a ticket (at a time when I probably really deserved one for operating a vehicle that shouldn’t be anywhere near a road). The funny thing is that at one point, a tribal cop pulled up behind me and followed me for a couple miles. There was a turn coming up and I was sure he’d pull me over when I didn’t use a turn signal (I knew I could use hand signals, but I guessed he still would have pulled me over if he saw that). At the last minute, he swung into the other lane and passed me. Guess I chose the right speed.

So I made it off the res and into Chadron, which felt like coming back to civilization after crawling through the dessert. Chadron was a hip little Nebraska town with a lot to offer. The guys at the repair shop were super friendly and directed me to a coffee shop down the road where I could hang out until they had news. I was warned that if it wasn’t an easy fix then it could take days for them to trace all the wires to the problem. Honestly, the prospect of being trapped in Chadron didn’t worry me one bit; I was bracing for the worst and had already arranged to stay the night at the house of a very cool old guy named Buffalo Bruce (thanks couchsurfing.org!). And the coffee shop not only had my favorite tea, but a very mouthwatering selection of gluten-free and pumpkin flavored treats. Could have stayed there all day in total bliss.

Chadron, NE

As it turns out, I barely had time to finish my pumpkin strudel before the mechanic called to tell me my car was done. We’re talking 20 minutes, tops.

In the end, it was a blown fuse. A big fuse, and one hidden deep inside the engine compartment, but a fuse nonetheless. I gladly paid the $20 labor fee and refused to feel bad about missing that fuse when we checked the others, or about buying that new alternator. Hey, I followed my friends’ advice—which was very sound given what we knew at the time—I grew a lot closer to them and I saved a ton of money by learning to change that alternator myself instead of paying a garage to do it. And there was no way I was going to spend another four hours removing that new alternator or drive all the way back to return it. I already cashed in the old one to be rebuilt and resold, anyway. For what it’s worth, the mechanic told me that fuse was a rare part and I wouldn’t have been able to find it in any auto parts shop in the area. They were only able to replace it because they had another broken down Infiniti with the same part and they pulled it for me.

So, with a big weight off my shoulders and a big smile on my face, I gave my best to Buffalo Bruce and hit the road. It took me over 12 hours to cross Nebraska and most of Iowa, but I finally arrived at my uncle’s house in Cedar Rapids. I decided to cut out the Chicago visit to save time and more than make up the cost of that alternator, and now I’m back on schedule to arrive at my next farm in Mississippi in two days. And while I was on the road, the Mississippi farmer called to ask what kind of beer I liked before he went shopping.

Life is good.

Res Life

After all my days of cruisin’, I finally arrived at my destination on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation!

I arrived a bit later in the day than I expected, partly because I took a scenic detour through the Badlands and partly because I got horribly lost. At any rate, Shannon, the woman in charge of volunteers, directed me to the construction site and told me I could set up my tent anywhere on the property. It was late, dark and cold, though, so I opted to snooze in the car for my first night. My car’s back seat, believe it or not, has given me some of my best nights of sleep on this trip.

I should probably explain this reservation project. Although it’s part of the WWOOF network, it’s not exactly a farm. A house belonging to Shannon’s father-in-law burned down over a year ago and she’s spearheading the project to rebuild it. Not only is it being rebuilt, but Shannon is turning it into a large permaculture project to help the community. This includes straw bale exterior walls, cob interior walls, a composting toilet, a solar heater, a rainwater catchment system and several permaculture gardens that will hopefully produce veggies and medicinal herbs that can be sold for profit.


The Pine Ridge reservation is the poorest Indian reservation in the country, and this construction project is smack dab in the middle of its poorest area (by the way, I’ve learned that “Native American” is not kosher by most Indians). Shannon is using this building project as a way to reach out to the tribal community, teach them to do their own sustainable projects and hopefully generate some revenue for locals who are willing to help out with the garden and get involved with selling its goods. She is currently encouraging people to turn their old refrigerators into worm farms/compost bins—as just about everybody out here seems to have an old refrigerator lying around the yard.

I knew most of this info before I arrived, but the area doesn’t look as impoverished as I expected. It may be low income by national standards, but I quickly realized that it’s a close-knit community where everyone habitually pitches in to help each other out. For example, Gerald, the father who will eventually live in the house, needs to travel 10 miles every day from his daughter’s house to the construction site. He doesn’t have a car, so in the morning he just starts walking until someone passes by and picks him up. His sons do the same thing, and I’ve learned most people in the community get around that way.

There is barely anything out here other than lots of small houses. The region consists of several small towns each about 10-20 miles apart, and it’s rare to find even a gas station in most of them. I’ve been in rural areas with gas stations and stores further apart than this, but never among so many towns with such dense populations. The poverty level probably has something to do with lack of businesses, and therefore jobs, but it seems like nobody here is really interested in money-making schemes. I’ve heard a few comments to verify that many Indians here hate how capitalist white people just want to make a buck.

Well, I chose this place because it seemed like a radically different project than what I’ve been doing and I wanted variety in my farms, as well as a cultural experience. So here I am…